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Shiftry has nice offensive stats, and while its Speed is iffy, it's nothing Chlorophyll can't fix. SolarBeam and Dark Pulse are for STAB, HP Fire is for the Sun boost, and Dark Pulse and Focus Blast have almost flawless coverage.

Item provides an optimal power boost while leaving Shiftry free to choose its own move. Ability is for that necessary Speed boost.

Same as the last one, but with Shiftry's better base 100 Attack. Seed Bomb and Sucker Punch are for STAB, Sucker Punch and Brick Break are for the great coverage, and Rock Slide is filler.

Item provides an optimal power boost while leaving Shiftry free to choose its own move. Ability is for that necessary Speed boost.

Other options:
*Shiftry has access to Swords Dance and Nasty Plot, but lacks the defenses to be able to effectively set up.
*Growth is a decent option for a mixed sun sweeper, acting as Nasty Plot and Swords Dance all in one under the sun.
*Extrasensory and Low Kick both bear mentioning.

Abilities:
*Early Bird: If Shiftry is asleep, it will wake up in half the time it would ordinarily take it to. This includes Rest-induced sleep. Not the worst ability, but Shiftry has much better.
*Chlorophyll: Shiftry's Speed is doubled in the sun. Clearly its best option, given its lacking base Speed.
*Pickpocket: Shiftry's Hidden Ability. Not legal yet, but it's not really an issue, given its situational status. If Shiftry is hit by a contact move, it steals the opponent's item (provided the opponent has an item and Shiftry does not). Very, very situational, and not worth the loss of Speed.

Partners:
Ninetales. End of story.

Counters:
Priority moves, Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave in particular. Shiftry depends on that Chlorophyll boost, and ways to outspeed it will surely spell its doom.

Opinion:
As part of my first ever team in Ruby Version, Shiftry holds a special place in my heart.

This is a great set for anyone who just hates Sub boosters. Bullet Seed rips through Substitutes and catches sweet STAB. Sucker Punch makes for a fun utility STAB attack. X-Scissors stops other Grass and Dark types while Rock Slide takes out Flying types. Swords Dance gives Shiftry much more firepower to work with.

The borderline default Special Sweeper set for Shiftry. Leaf Storm has huge power and rocks with Choice Specs, Solarbeam works well on Sun teams if you are sure that its safe to use it, and Giga Drain is a safe third option that also has that nifty recovery to counteract Life Orb recoil and other damage. Pick your first STAB move, then add on Dark Pulse for a strong secondary STAB and coverage. Focus Blast is an obvious third move to deal with other Dark types and Steel types. The last move should depend on whether you run Choice Specs or Life Orb. If you run Specs, use Hidden Power [Fire] which gets that nifty Sun boost when its in play to wipe out other Grass types. With Life Orb however, you can use Nasty Plot and turn Shiftry into a deadly sweeper in just one turn flat if Sun is also in play.

Ability Analysis - Shiftry Edition
Chlorophyll - Base 80 Speed is Average, but doubling it will be so useful for sweeping.
Early Bird - Halves the number of turns you're asleep, rounded down. Useful for quick recovery from Rest's Sleep after-effect, but not with Shiftry's bad Base 60 defenses and Quad Weakness to Bug. Leave it to an Early Bird Pokemon with considerably more bulk.
Pickpocket (Dream World, Unavailable) - Aside from Sneasel, Weavile, and your previous stages (who, likewise, don't have this yet), Shiftry is the only Pokemon with this Ability. It could be useful for using Normal Gem + Fake Out (or other consumables) then stealing Leftovers, Choice Band, Choice Scarf, etc. but you have to beware of Toxic Orb, Flame Orb, and other nasties. It pales against Chlorophyll, though.

Yeah this is pretty much Shiftry's only usable Special moveset. People keep saying this over its slightly higher physical Attack because Shiftry gets access to free Solarbeam in the sun. Although it's not OU material, if used in OU, Ninetales is obviously a great partner because it gives Shiftry unlimited sun. Other notable moves are Whirlwind which...I guess...since Shiftry could use it with its Focus Sash to get rid of something it cannot defeat. And there's Extrasensory...if you want to brag about how only Shiftry's family could learn it in Gen III. I'd say Modset nature to get the most out of your Special Attacks unless you're paranoid about being outsped by someone 519 speed or higher.

Shiftry is something of an oddball Pokemon. Its typing, a bizarre combination of Grass and Dark, is shared only by its pre-evolution Nuzleaf and Caturne. It has some solid offenses and a decent movepool to work with, and has access to both Nasty Plot and Swords Dance. Its Speed is slightly lacking, but with Chlorophyll that Speed is not an issue. Shiftry is not a Pokemon that can stay around long, though. It has poor defenses, and its typing leaves it with six weaknesses (including a nasty 4x Bug weakness). Still, Shiftry is a solid Chlorophyll sweeper that does best in the lowest tiers.

Recommended tiers: NU-RU

Chlorophyll is Shiftry's best choice. When it's sunny, Shiftry's Speed is doubled. This gives it around 500 Speed with a neutral Speed nature and about 560 Speed with a +Speed nature, making it difficult to outrun.Early Bird halves the number of turns Shiftry is asleep. While not a bad ability (especially since it means Rest only lasts one turn), it's not too good on Shiftry, who is far too frail to Rest.Pickpocket causes Shiftry to steal the item of a Pokemon who makes contact with it in an attack. Only Shiftry's and Weavile's lines get this ability, but I find it rather wasteful. These Pokemon are so frail; most attacks will OHKO them and I don't know if Pickpocket works if the Pokemon faints. I suppose it could work well against a lead Pokemon.

Leaf Storm is the shining member of Shiftry's moveset. You've got a Base 140 power move (not including STAB) working of a nice base 90 Sp. Attack. The downside is the Sp. Attack drop, but Shiftry is often a mixed attacker. As usual, Energy Ball, Grass Knot, and Giga Drain are all weaker alternatives. Giga Drain is especially notable for helping to deal with Life Orb recoil, since Life Orb is a popular item on Shiftry. Shadow Ball, Dark Pulse, Icy Wind, Ominous Wind, Focus Blast, Snarl, Extrasensory, Silver Wind, and Hidden Power make up the remainder of Shiftry's special movepool. Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse and Focus Blast provide perfect or near perfect coverage, but beware of Focus Blast's low accuracy. Extrasensory has a good flinch chance, which can help Shiftry survive longer. Snarl is weak, but lowers the foe's Sp. Attack, making it worth noting.

Shiftry has a large physical movepool to work with. Seed Bomb is the strongest physical Grass move it has access to, which isn't too bad. Sucker Punch also gets STAB and can help get Shiftry the jump on faster opponents outside of sun or on priority users. Foul Play works off the opponent's Attack stat, making it devastating to Pokemon with high Attack but low Defense, but near useless on low Attack Pokemon like Chansey. Brick Break is a solid Fighting move that combos wonderfully with Dark attacks. Low Kick does high damage to heavy Pokemon, but lightweights will shrug it off. X-scissor and Rock Slide are filler, but Shiftry can benefit from Rock Slide's decent flinch chance. Shiftry gets Bounce, but I wouldn't recommend it due to lack of STAB. Fake Out scores some free damage, which is always nice. Body Slam can paralyze, and Double Edge has high power at the expense of causing recoil. Last, but not least, Explosion can make a weak Shiftry go out with a bang. Though the move has been nerfed, its Shiftry's most powerful physical attack and can cause heavy damage to an opposing Pokemon.

Shiftry has a few support moves to work with, but its too frail to make use of most of them. The Sub-Seed strategy is an option, as usual. Nasty Plot and Swords Dance give Shiftry's offensive stats a significant boost, but its hard to find time to pull off the move. Power Swap could help Shifrty get rid of the Sp. Attack drop from Leaf Storm while crippling an opponent, but more than likely it'll end up fodder instead. Tailwind provides support for the team on the off-chance you're not running a Sun team, but again, Shiftry's frailty makes it difficult to pull off.

Double and Triple options: I've seen atreecko on Youtube use Shiftry on a Doubles Sun team in PBR very well. Shiftry's partner can set up the Sun while Shiftry itself does the damage. Rock Slide and Explosion can hit multiple foes, but beware of Heat Wave.

Countering Shiftry: Priority moves work best on a Chlorophyll boosted Shiftry. It's so frail that priority will be taking serious chunks out of it (especially Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave). Trick Room is very effective in slowing Shiftry down, as it makes its Speed work against it. You can also get rid of the Sun by bringing in your own weather; without Chlorophyll, Shiftry is much easier to manage. Also, although its attacks are strong they are not the strongest out there. The problem is that many Shiftry run mixed sets, so most walls will struggle a little. I suppose Bronzor would be best unless Shiftry packs HP Fire.

Shiftry is a little weird. Its typing gives it 7 resistances which seems pretty good, but it also has 6 weaknesses in a few of the most common attack types there are including ice, fire, fighting, poison, and a x4 weakness to bug. Its a really weird typing to say the least. Its abilitys are almost entirely team based or moveset based as well. Early Bird should only be used on a rest talk set, and chlorophil should only be on a sunny day team. Its stats are reasonable but not anywhere near good with 90/60/60 for its defences and 100/90 for its attack stats it looks a little subpar. Shiftry's movepool is a little weird as well, with sucker punch and knock off, or bullet seed and leach seed, you can go a lot of directions with shiftry. The problem is that no matter what you choose to have shiftry do there is someone else who does it better. Here are some movesets that it can use but like I said, consider somthing else for its spot.

Leach Wind
Ability: Chlorophil
Item: Leftovers
Leach Seed
Tailwind
Seed Bomb
Sucker Punch
Nature: Jolly
Ev's: 252 attack, 252 speed, 4 hp
This set is mainly a support set. Leach Seed gives you a little bit of surviveability (Not much with your subpar stats) and tailwind gives you and your team a +1 speed boost for 4 turns, and ok move on a team that needs some more speed. Seed Bomb and Sucker Punch are your obligatory stab moves.

I've noticed a couple people listing Foul Play in their sets, but looking at Serebii's explination of the attack I can see the misunderstanding.

Foul Play does not soley look at modifiers added to the target's Attack. The target's Attack value and modifiers are entirely what calculates the damage done to the target. Foul Play does NOT calculate any of Shiftry's Attack, it calculates all of the target's.

In hindsight, this move would be great to use on Physical sweepers as they will end up using their own raw power against themselves. But if a bulky Pokémon is thrown your way with horrendous Attack? You're screwed; you're going to put as much a dent in that Pokémon as an Unknown would.

One person came up with a neat idea of Swagger + Foul Play, but again, you're calculating only the target's Attack and not Shiftry's. using Swagger on a physically weak Pokémon is not going to make Foul Play any more worthwhile.

I'm thinking about creating a printer-friendly Pokédex guidebook for Black and White versions. Let me know what you think about it here.

Shiftry fits snugly under what you’d expect for an all-out offensive attacker: low defenses, but great Attack and Special Attack. It’s Speed is unfortunately a little low, but thankfully it has access to Chlorophyll. Shiftry even has a few supportive options under its belt to help out its team. Dark-Grass is an interesting typing, but unfortunately weak to a lot of the everyday types seen in battle (Fire, Fighting, etc) in addition to a nasty 4x Bug weakness. Still, Shiftry can still hit things hard provided a little weather setup has been made in advance.

Abilities:Chlorophyll - Doubles Shiftry’s Speed in sunlight. Base 80 Speed is just shy of good in the fast-paced battle scene, but with Chlorophyll Shiftry is capable of reaching blistering speeds. This is a highly useful and much needed ability.

Early Bird - Makes Shiftry wake up in half the time when asleep. Relatively useless since Shiftry doesn’t have enough bulk to make good use of this ability.

Pickpocket (Dream World, currently unavailable) - When an opponent makes direct contact to Shiftry, their item is stolen. This could come in handy to some degree, as you could say steal Leftovers from an opponent and take away an important means of recovery for them. Stealing a Burn Orb or Choice item isn’t so glamorous, though. However, since you can potentially mess up an opponent a bit with this ability, it is worth considering. It won’t be in any of the sets I’ve written though because I’m concerning Shiftry’s Speed the most over this ability.

Shiftry also has access to Nasty Plot, meaning it can also be a good Special attacker. Dark Pulse is a great Special Dark-type that can make the opponent Flinch. Since Shiftry should be in a Sunny environment, it can take advantage of Solarbeam firing immediately. Hidden Power Fire is the only way a Special Shiftry can fight against Bug-types. It also gets a boost in the sun.

Shiftry has the ability to use the awesome Sleep Talk + Whirlwind combo (for those unfamiliar to the combo, Whirlwind loses its low priority when used through Sleep Talk). Dark Pulse is there so Shiftry doesn’t become easy Taunt bait. It also has the chance to flinch, which can come in handy.

Other Options:Tailwind gives a Speed boost to your whole party.Explosion could be used on a suicide set.Extrasensory is an interesting Psychic option that can flinch the target. For coverage purposes though it hasn’t been mentioned in the movesets.
There’s always Leech Seed to perform the generic SubSeeder technique.

I'm thinking about creating a printer-friendly Pokédex guidebook for Black and White versions. Let me know what you think about it here.

This sets a little gimmicky. When used in sun, Growth gives Shiftry a x2 boost to both attack stats. Leaf Storm is really powerful after a few boosts, but it lowers its Special Attack two stages, basically canceling out a Growth. Once the SpA boosts have been canceled out or exceeded, use Power Swap. This will give the opponent you Attack boosts and, possibly, your Special Attack drops. The Att boosts will power up Foul Play, allowing it to do at least decent damage. Again, this set will require some set up, but if used correctly could be very effective against a physical attacker.

Leftovers can give Shiftry some survivability, while Life Orb supplies a boosts. Since I'm not sure if LO boosts Foul Play, Meadow Plate could be used to get rid of the recoil.

All your Kirby are belong to us! (>' . ')> (>' . ')>(>' . ')> (b^-^)b

I am proud to present my first wild shiny since the 3rd Generation, Magikarp!
...We all got to start somewhere, right?

This time, I'll actually explain. Growth is an awesome stat booster in sunlight. Seed Bomb should be your STAB move as it has a higher base power than Giga Drain and its physical. Dark Pulse is your Dark STAB because Shiftry doesn't even have a good physical option. Now that fourth slot has a million options. We've seen Focus Blast and Hidden Power, so it's nothing new. Sucker Punch seems stupid on something with an active Chlorophyll, but Quick Attack can be great in a pinch, especially after it gets powered up by Growth. Fake Out is another weird one, but it breaks any Focus Sash and Sturdy, as well as being a great momentum starter. Rock Slide hits Flying types Bugs and Fire types, X-Scissor hits opposing Grass types and Dark types, and Brick Break does the physical (but weaker) work of Focus Blast.

Other options
Like almost every Grass type in existence, Shiftry can use the classic Substitute+Leech Seed combo. However, Shiftry is much more effective at attacking than doing anything technical.
In link battles, Nature Power becomes Earthquake, so that can be used.
A pure physical set is possible with Swords Dance, Seed Bomb, Sucker Punch, and Nature Power is possible, as is a Choice Band set that abuses Fake Out and switching. Just remember, Shiftry does not have a reliable physical Dark move outside of Sucker Punch.
Hilariously, Shiftry has Icy Wind. Use Hidden Power though. Unless you really want Hidden Power Fire and want to take down Gliscor really badly. Grass STAB will do the trick though.
Shiftry has Explosion.
Shiftry also has Self Destruct.
Shiftry also has Tailwind.
There is also Synthesis, Low Kick, and Extrasensory. No room for any of these moves though.

Countering:
get rid of the sun. Otherwise, Toxicroak, Breloom, or Virzion will be your best friends. Volcarona is an e

Shiftry. Cool. Odd typing. Nice movepool. He's only really let down by mediocre stats. 100/90/80 offences aren't getting him far while 60/90/90 defences aren't backing up to well. Sun gave him a great boost this Generation, but he's still outclassed by Venasaur. Ah well, he's a decent Sun sweeper nonetheless.

Counters
A big step to taking him down is changing the weather. He immediately becomes much more manageable once he's slowed down to base 80. Unfortunately the other weather changers can't switch-in to well. Priority also ruins him thanks to his average defence, particularly Ice Shard and Mach Punch. Defensive Flying types like Zapdos should be able to take his Grass and Fighting moves just fine as do a lot of Dual typed Grass pokemon, but watch out for Hidden Power[Ice].
Breloom gets a special mention for resisting his STABs and really being able to take advantage of the switch out.
And of course, all special based Shiftry are countered by Chansey/Blissey.
Anyway, remember that Shiftry's overall stats are fairly low. Sticking a bulky attacker in it's face and whacking away hard enough will eventually take it down.

Mixed Shiftry. Growth boosts your Atk/Spatk by 2 stages in the Sun meaning Shiftry can double all it's offensive stats in 1 turn! It also means you need to rely on Focus Blasts shoddy accuracy with Brick Break or Low Kick. Alternatively you can just go with Nature Power which is essentially Earthquake.

Partners:
Sunny Day-users for Chlorophyll and/or Solarbeam users espically Ninetailes
Heal Bell/Aromatherapy/Wake-Up Slap/Safeguard-users for Chlorophyll
Generally any pokemon against Bug-types like Gliscor, Tentacruel, and Mismagius. If Trick Room is in effect, Probopass, Bastiodon, and Dusknoir may also be added.

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No info about my Friend Safari.
Vivillon Pattern: Polar
Looking for nicknamed, shiny, and/or have a hidden ability in GTS and may battle at anytime.
If interested, send a private message with your ID #.

Chlorophyll: Probably your best choice. It doubles your pretty slow speed. However, 160 Base Speed is nothing to take lightly.
Early Bird: It's good for countering sleep and a one turn rest isn't bad.
Pickpocket: It's kind of gimicky. you risk putting a Pokemon with bad defenses and not so great HP out against a Pokemon that could OHKO you with a special move unless it's obviously a physical sweeper. Then you steal its item which may not help.

Nasty Plot doubles your Sp Atk. Then with the sun out your speed's also doubled. Now you're extremely dangerous. Solarbeam's good for when the sun's out. Leaf Storm's stronger, but has less accuracy, and it also cancels out your Nasty Plot. But on the bright side you don't suffer the loss of Special Attack. Focus Blast covers Steels which are really annnoying for grasss types. Then Extrasensory can cover your Fighting weakness.

Swagger and Leaf Storm until you have -6 Sp Atk and they have +6 Atk. Then Power Swap to get their attack boost and they ahve a -6 Sp Atk. Then you can Swagger them again so they get really bad confusion damage. And then just Foul Play them to death. Yeah. This set is really bad... Like you could survive around three hits from anything. Swagger does buy some time though.

It's pretty obvious how it works. Swagger and then you Foul Play. Swagger also makes their confusion damage greater. With their raised attack you Foul Play them to death. It's a STAB and has hardly any resistances. Then there's Psych Up which gives you more attack power. It's like being swaggered without the confusion. Aerial Ace is useful for fighting types. Dig covers Fire and Steel. Leech Seed does gradual damage and heals you. Then Synthesis is also useful for getting recovery.

Shiftry's kind of useful since it can use Bullet Seed or Beat Up. Perfect for Pokemon with Justified or Sap Sipper. Pretty useful to get max Attack with standard full team battles with Beat Up. As for Sap Sipper, you get no damage, however, you may not get the max of five hits but you have to use it at least twice anyways to get max attack. And moer than likely you'll get at least three hits two times.'

A very useful partner is Drought Ninetales which can cover your Bug weakness.

Having fun in the sun when a mean old Tyranitar or Politoed gets you down? This is the set for you! The purpose of this set is to win the weather wars that plague all sun users, while maintaining some other utility. If a Politoed comes in, expecting to halt a growth sweep, hit it with a strong Seed Bomb right off the bat. If Tyranitar tries to come in with similar purpose, hit it with a low kick. Latias, a severe enemy of sun, and Gengar are the reason you carry faint attack.

Last edited by Sound; 16th April 2012 at 3:24 PM.

I have officially claimed Castform, The Master of all Weather!

Monorpale is my favorite Gen 6 Pokemon so far. If you have a problem with it, you can talk to the tassel hand.

I've noticed a couple people listing Foul Play in their sets, but looking at Serebii's explination of the attack I can see the misunderstanding.

Foul Play does not soley look at modifiers added to the target's Attack. The target's Attack value and modifiers are entirely what calculates the damage done to the target. Foul Play does NOT calculate any of Shiftry's Attack, it calculates all of the target's.

In hindsight, this move would be great to use on Physical sweepers as they will end up using their own raw power against themselves. But if a bulky Pokémon is thrown your way with horrendous Attack? You're screwed; you're going to put as much a dent in that Pokémon as an Unknown would.

One person came up with a neat idea of Swagger + Foul Play, but again, you're calculating only the target's Attack and not Shiftry's. using Swagger on a physically weak Pokémon is not going to make Foul Play any more worthwhile.

Fling can pair well with Pickpocket, especially with Flame Orb or any other Status Inflicting Fling Item. Flame Orb is the one to come to mind first because Pickpocket requires Physical Contact - something Burn can soften the impact from, short of a Physical Fire Type.

Counters
-Heracross has, by far, the best chance among non-Steel Types. Since Shiftry is weak to both of 'cross's STAB Types, quad weak to Bug (i.e. Megahorn), and 'cross resists both of Shiftry's STAB Types, 'cross is a definite pain in Shiftry's trunk. However, 'cross must beware of HP (Fire) during Sunny Day/Drought conditions.
-Steel Types - See Heracross's entry. Also beware of HP (Fire) in Strong Sunlight.
-Dark Dual-Types of the Fire, Poison, Steel, and Grass variety also resist both of Shiftry's STAB Types, but must beware of Brick Break, Low Sweep, Low Kick, and Focus Blast.

Fling can pair well with Pickpocket, especially with Flame Orb or any other Status Inflicting Fling Item. Flame Orb is the one to come to mind first because Pickpocket requires Physical Contact - something Burn can soften the impact from, short of a Physical Fire Type.

Counters
-Heracross has, by far, the best chance among non-Steel Types. Since Shiftry is weak to both of 'cross's STAB Types, quad weak to Bug (i.e. Megahorn), and 'cross resists both of Shiftry's STAB Types, 'cross is a definite pain in Shiftry's trunk. However, 'cross must beware of HP (Fire) during Sunny Day/Drought conditions.
-Steel Types - See Heracross's entry. Also beware of HP (Fire) in Strong Sunlight.
-Dark Dual-Types of the Fire, Poison, Steel, and Grass variety also resist both of Shiftry's STAB Types, but must beware of Brick Break, Low Sweep, Low Kick, and Focus Blast.

The counters you listed are often not useful in any other purpose than to check shiftry which is... not common in OU. It's better to use something like Heatran, which completely walls Shiftry and can set up rocks on it - something a lot more useful to teams nowadays, what with the prelevance of volt-turn.

Fling can pair well with Pickpocket, especially with Flame Orb or any other Status Inflicting Fling Item. Flame Orb is the one to come to mind first because Pickpocket requires Physical Contact - something Burn can soften the impact from, short of a Physical Fire Type.

Counters
-Heracross has, by far, the best chance among non-Steel Types. Since Shiftry is weak to both of 'cross's STAB Types, quad weak to Bug (i.e. Megahorn), and 'cross resists both of Shiftry's STAB Types, 'cross is a definite pain in Shiftry's trunk. However, 'cross must beware of HP (Fire) during Sunny Day/Drought conditions.
-Steel Types - See Heracross's entry. Also beware of HP (Fire) in Strong Sunlight.
-Dark Dual-Types of the Fire, Poison, Steel, and Grass variety also resist both of Shiftry's STAB Types, but must beware of Brick Break, Low Sweep, Low Kick, and Focus Blast.

heracross maybe the ' ideal counter' but has a 4x flying weakness, so a well aimed air cutter/aerial ace/bounce would ohko herra befor it has time to counter. Better counters are infernape and blaziken. Both have access to fire,fighting, flying,u-turn for infernape, its unbelievable. Also, staraptor is a beast at countering. U-turn,brave bird, closet... too many countering. Heatran walls shiftry, but needs to watch for fighting type moves. Salamence and dragonite need mentioning,due to 4x resistance to grass, and salamence can intimidate it down,if physical

OK, so Shiftry has Life Orb and Growth to cover its mediocre Atk and Sp. Atk. Sun support cannot be overstated: if you want this to win, you have to have sun out. Energy Ball is an option over SolarBeam if you don't want to be too reliant on sun, but SolarBeam is usually the superior option. Dark Pulse is its other STAB attack, and gets nice coverage with Brick Break.

heracross maybe the ' ideal counter' but has a 4x flying weakness, so a well aimed air cutter/aerial ace/bounce would ohko herra befor it has time to counter. Better counters are infernape and blaziken. Both have access to fire,fighting, flying,u-turn for infernape, its unbelievable. Also, staraptor is a beast at countering. U-turn,brave bird, closet... too many countering. Heatran walls shiftry, but needs to watch for fighting type moves. Salamence and dragonite need mentioning,due to 4x resistance to grass, and salamence can intimidate it down,if physical

Keep forgetting about the access to those Moves...I'll have to look into why my brain lapses like that.

For Physical/Mixed Shiftry, 'cross must beware of Flying, but Sun opens up the Special Movepool to HP (Fire). Either way, Shiftry can easily handle most counters, but must make sure it has the proper Speed and Move-Type advantages to do so.

Durability is a weighty issue for Shiftry with Base 90 HP (which will barely see EVs due to its role as a Sweeper), Base 60 defenses, and 2 Types that don't help each other too well (plus, 5 common weaknesses and 1 uncommon weakness hurt far more than the resistances help). So many offense-oriented Pokemon carry a way to check, if not outright stop, Shiftry.

The crucial point is Speed with using and fighting Shiftry. Base 80 Speed is average, but Chlorophyll jacks that way up past 11. Potential for 568 Speed with max Speed EVs and IV under a +Speed Nature means that not even Speed Deoxys can outrun you, but other Chlorophyll users could. Jumpluff, Lilligant, DW Leafeon, and Leavanny can, but are outclassed on power. DW Venusaur ties, but has STAB Poison. Sawsbuck, however, can outspeed either way and fight back with Megahorn, but has weaknesses to Fighting, Fire, and Flying Moves. DW Whimsicott outruns Shiftry either way, too, but is less ideal than Prankster-cott.

However, Unburden-lee can also wreck Shiftry. Fake Out + Normal Gem will negate a Focus Sash that Shiftry may have and instantly give 'lee the Speed advantage, despite Strong Sunlight.

Ok, well uh, Shiftry is renowned for being able to Nasty Plot or Swords Dance. Growth also got better, and Chlorophyll is a damn good Ability; both are great in the revived Sun team. Early Bird has some niche now that Sleep is broken. Pickpocket won't see use often, but Shiftry can use an effective Sash set. Otherwise, Shiftry already saw poor usage (sadly) last Gen and with Explosion gone daft now, it doesn't bode well. What I really like, however, is that Shiftry has significantly more Atk than Venusaur, only slightly less SpAtk, same Speed, and arguably better movepool compared to Venusaur. And Shiftry's net total of Atk + SpAtk exceeds that of Venu's. Sure, Shiftry doesn't have Power Whip (or even Leaf Blade), and Sucker Punch is sorta irrelevant with Chlorophyll...eh...

Defensive Shiftry was a fun little niche back in the day but the environment is too offensive now for this to be even remotely plausible anymore.

Oh yeah, and the increased usage of Psychic attacks in Ubers may increase Shiftry's popularity in Ubers Xd

Another great counter is abomnasnow. Changes weather to hail and then it has 100%accuracy with blizzard to OHKO shiftry
Volcarona does well if there isn't sun,scizor beats it quick, blissley soaks its special hits with ease